


you never wear shoes without your socks

by honeykaspbrak



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Character Study, Domesticity, F/M, commitment issues, complicated relationship, ian n mandy are the best best friends, idk when this is set like s3, i’ve been on a lip kick recently, lip needs to get his act together, love or something like that, mandy is a doll, this wasn’t supposed to be the finished thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-01
Updated: 2018-10-01
Packaged: 2019-07-23 04:22:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16151510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeykaspbrak/pseuds/honeykaspbrak
Summary: lip’s probably in love with her, in a fucked-up way that he’s never going to admit to himself or to anyone, for that matter.





	you never wear shoes without your socks

**Author's Note:**

> this is ... something i wrote a while ago that i never got around to finishing like i thought i might. so it’s short and awkwardly cut off and plotless but i thought i’d drop it on y’all anyway cause i haven’t written new content in Ages. i’m back in school and it’s such a drain i’m sorry :,(( hopefully an update to _we have to walk_ will be coming soon ??

lip’s probably in love with her, in a fucked-up way that he’s never going to admit to himself or to anyone, for that matter. he wakes up often in the nights they sleep together, her dark hair (its natural color, but still ratty on the ends from years of bleaching it out) spread out over her face and his pillow. she’s just a carefully-collected set of bones, her fluttery breaths making her thin chest rise and fall in time with the ticking of the wall clock. her hands are thin and clammy and polished on the nails with chipped black paint and she reaches out to lip in her sleep. 

she sleeps in underwear and nothing else because his house is hot as fuck in the summer months, and the fan propped in the window doesn’t help any. she smokes sitting on ian’s bed with the window open. she outlines her eyes in black in the mirror in the hallway and keeps her toothbrush and deodorant in a little kit in the bathroom that’s labeled _mandy_ in her pretty, slanted writing. she makes eggs and toast in the mornings for debbie and carl and is pretty much perfect in every way there is but lip is too much of an asshole to settle down into it. 

“mandy is sorta freaking me out.” he says to ian one morning when she and the little kids are downstairs folding laundry (how she roped carl into that, lip has no idea). 

“whaddya mean?” ian says, voice edgy and suspicious as he blows smoke out through his nose. mandy’s his best friend, lip knows, has been since the two of them were, like, freshman and ian was still dicking kash down in the store. 

“it’s like... i feel like i’m married?” mandy grinning at him as she swipes a finger over the corner of his mouth, _hold on, you’ve got something... got it!_ mandy coming downstairs in his t-shirts. mandy cooking dinner and rolling joints expertly on the counter, mandy in his bed or ian’s or on the couch or on the front porch with her long legs spread out and her music playing on lip’s pocket speaker. “it’s throwing me for a loop.”

“you’re just a fuckhead who’s scared of commitment.” ian spits, not unfairly. lip snatches the cigarette from him and sits down on the foot of his bed. “she’s the best thing that’s ever happened to you.” 

“yeah.” lip says, tasting mandy’s lipstick under his tongue. “yeah, that’s true.” 

“get it together, lip.” ian is prickly and sad-eyed in camo pants and a wifebeater, but lip knows better than to pry at him about it. it’s a guy, probably. “you know she deserves better than you.” 

lip boggarts the smoke and grinds it out on the windowsill and doesn’t respond because, yeah, she does. he knows it, ian knows it, hell, mandy herself probably knows it. 

“i’m a dick, aren’t i?” he says finally , and ian just nods, eyes closed and head back against the wall.

lip goes downstairs, skipping every other step, and comes up behind mandy where she stands at the kitchen counter. she squeals and whirls around to catch him in a kiss when he squeezes her around the waist, and lip’s heart thuds heavy.

**Author's Note:**

> i just ... love mandy. she deserved more love. i hope u all thought this was okay.


End file.
